There are estimates of thousands of positions needed annually in various aspects of the manufactured home industry. There are local, regional, and national job boards or employment services galore. Some industry firms advertise on multiple jobs sites, network, and engage in other activities, hoping to connect to the right candidate.

 

With tight labor markets, competition for decent or qualified workers can often be intense.  

A partial list of industry roles that are routinely needed would include:

·        Factory workers.
·        Community managers.
·        Sales representatives (wholesale, retail).
·        Finance companies.
·        Installers, transport and other drivers.
·        Service personnel.
·        Groundskeepers.
·        Office staff, bookkeeping, etc.
·        Management positions.

These are some of the more commonly needed roles to be filled, including HR and training posts that may be vacant.  As recruiters know, competition can be serious in numerous markets.

 

Honesty? 

Candor in life is useful. Tell it like it is and you don’t have to worry about what you said.

Companies such as Clayton Homes and others in manufactured housing pitch potential workers on their superior working conditions. Let’s be blunt, that’s going to be a fairly-common approach.

Having looked at some of the ‘sales pitches’ – job marketing – that are used, it is no wonder than turnover is common with numbers of MHVille firms and locations from coast-to-coast. When reality hits a new hirer that was ‘sold’ on going to work, in a healthy economy with about 7.5 million job openings, of course some will leave.  If that is routine, that’s why a fresh strategy is needed.

If you keep doing what you do, you will keep on getting what you’ve been experiencing. If the above and below describe you and/or your firm, read on. 

It isn’t slick talk, cool videos, or PowerPoints from casual and/or sharply dressed professionals that will fill a job or career role with a truly long-term and viable candidate. That’s reflected by turnover rates – and job satisfaction, or the lack thereof.

 

 

On sales jobs or roles that involved bonuses, saying what is possible – but not making it likely to achieve said ‘potential’ earnings – is to set the stage for career dissatisfaction. Why would someone be surprised when the ‘sold’ worker finally don’t show up, call, or give you the courtesy of quitting to your face? The solution is to have a total strategy that avoids that drama.

Therefore, it is a planned approach – a total vision for your firm and location(s) – one that seek honest, mutual victories. You don’t have to have the lowest priced product or service to succeed. You don’t always have to have the top pay either, so long as you can sell the right vision to the best possible candidate.

Instead, you must be able to legitimately frame an authentic message that team members can relate to before and after coming on board. That authenticity will increase the odds that you get the candidate you needed, one that will be happy showing up every workday, and that will in turn benefit your clients who may encounter a properly motivated and informed team member.

Recruiting, team member attraction, and developing their skills so they will be productive and want to stay are what results in the proverbial win-win-win.

That means you – as an owner, manager, or HR professional involved in the hiring process – need the correct vision yourselves. You don’t want to get the next warm body in the door that will say ‘yes’ and show up more-or-less on time. Want long-term success with your team? Then you must have a total process that will yield that long-term result.

 

Step Back, Fresh Eyes, Practical Steps

Job seekers and new hires will find out the truth about an operation sooner or later anyway. Never forget that point, which tees up the balance of what follows.

First, Manufactured Home Industry politics aside, MHProNews and our sister site have established themselves as by far the most-read news site. No other trade publisher tackles the thorny issues as we do. The flak – direct or oblique – are unique badges of honor. We cover the topics that aren’t bland, they are real. That matters for job and career recruits. It matters for investors, researchers, pros, politicos, prospects, and others too. 

Weathermen report the weather, like it or not. We don’t manufacture manufactured home industry controversy.  There is no need, there is plenty of it. Rather, we expose what comes up and/or has existed for some time.

That kind of candor and credibility matters with worthwhile job seekers. Don’t hide problems, confront them.

If a serious job seeker researches manufactured housing, they need real answers that make sense to issues like the John Oliver viral video errantly named “Mobile Homes.”  That’s one of many possible examples of why what we publish on MHLivingNews or MHProNews matter on several levels.  Jobs, careers, investing, regulatory issues, and more are just some of the scenarios that benefit from reality instead of mere fluff or endless – and inaccurate – happy talk. 

For those companies who do exit interviews with employees that are departing – when that exit interview goes deep enough – often reveals discomfort with the manufactured home (MH) industry.

As an example. Imagine an actual conversion with a manager over lunch. He was with an MH industry lender, in the presence of his supervisor.  What that ‘manager’ said during the meal was sheer embarrassment to his boss. That finance manager had disdain for manufactured homes. The boss was shocked. But in fairness to that now gone manager, how was that missed during the hirer or quarterly evaluations? The culprit in part was a lack of a good foundation during the recruiting process.  The failure during hiring continued because there was no mechanism to reinforce an authentic reality that makes going to work with head held high easier.

How much does a bad hire cost a firm?  By contrast, how much is a performing team mate worth?

 

 

Reality Matters

Let’s be clear. MHProNews and our sister site of MHLivingNews have stood the rest of time. We’ve taken the slings and arrows. We are not only still standing; we are growing and have a new website here on MHProNews. Last month – June 2019 – per third-party metrics we had:

• not 500,000,
• not 1 million,
• we had north of a stunning 1.7 million pageviews in June.

In an industry as modest as ours is now, that’s stunning. We have more traffic in a day than others who publish may get in a month. We’re working out the kinks on our new website, but with 20,000 articles, that’s expected.  That is also the absolute most content of its kind in MHVille by far. That’s a magnet.

Articles that aren’t fluff are magnetic too. Love or hate what is written, it’s laid out with evidence, facts, and reason. We give other voices an opportunity to respond. There is nothing in MHVille as follow-the-money, evidence-based, and common-sense oriented anywhere else in industry publishing.  When recruits are hunting, a properly framed message can make a difference in terms of the likely tenure for a good candidate.

 

What Legacy Learned

As Legacy Housing discovered, we have by far the most engaged manufactured home professional audience. That matters with B2B marketing, but also with jobs. Per Legacy, not only did our site and their site metrics give positive results, but they did actual surveys of their attendees.  Casey Mack – with their general counsel’s expressed okay – said that we were the ONLY source for customers and leads. That’s good for clients of MHProNews, but is obviously embarrassing for others that boast but don’t deliver.

 

 

Manufactured housing is poised for serious growth, given the proper steps. Recruiting and filling jobs are a necessary element in a larger process on the road to sustainable success.

Having proved ourselves for nearly a decade, we can now pick and choose those firm’s we want to work with to help them achieve their growth objectives.

If you are or strive to be a ‘white hat’ ethical operation, have the budget, then email or call. 

You can post job ads all over the web. Why keep doing the same thing?  When you do, you should expect the same results.

Therefore, what you really need is a broader process that can make your business goals come-to-life. Achieving goals won’t happen without common-sense change. We called that Management By Objective (MBO) back at the university. Goals are routinely accomplished by attracting the right kind of people in the first place. Objectives are achieved by continuing to train and energize them in a manner that will give team members of all backgrounds the best odds to succeed. 

Our methods are proprietary. No one else is positioned to do what we have done numerous times.  See the links here and here. There’s more, but that and what Casey Mack and Legacy have said about our ability to deliver is more than enough.

Call 863-213-4090 or email to learn more. 

In this economy, this business of how job and career recruiting and training are evergreen – always timely – topics. That’s a wrap on this installment of manufactured home “Industry News, Tips, and Views Pros Can Use” © where “We Provide, You Decide.” © ## (Industry news, commentary, fact-checks, and analysis.  Third-party images and content are provided under fair use guidelines.)

By L.A. “Tony” Kovach – for MHProNews.com.

Tony earned the Lottinville Award in history from the University of Oklahoma. He has earned multiple awards in manufactured housing and in history. He’s a managing member of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com.

Office 863-213-4090 | Connect on LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/latonykovach

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